


Hopeless

by scullyseviltwin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e02 The Sign of Three, M/M, Spoilers, You've Got Mail spoilers, but no seriously it's angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 04:02:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1925985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyseviltwin/pseuds/scullyseviltwin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Joe Fox arrived at Kathleen’s apartment with daisies, he was surprised to find that his stomach dipped and surged as though a tiny contingent of butterflies had become upset. John became sentimental about the outcome of the story and he supposed that alright, yes, it was all a bit romantic.</p><p>More than a bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hopeless

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Erin for her quick beta work on this!
> 
> I'm a complete sucker for _You've Got Mail_ and I basically ruin the ending in this fic, so if you ever intend on watching the movie... don't read this.

It was relatively quiet and still inside of 221B Baker Street. The time was rounding on nine o’clock; Sherlock was seated at his worktop in the kitchen silently reviewing samples of lakewater and John was pliant and warm on the sofa, telly murmuring at a low volume in the corner.

John flicked around the channels until he settled on a programme and toed off his shoes, kicking them gently beneath the coffee table. It was a rare evening off and he didn’t have to be at the clinic tomorrow, so he was taking advantage of it. 

There were two empty bottles of Old Peculiar on the coffee table and a half-full pint glass next to them. John would periodically reach forward, take a pull and settle back into the couch, shifting his shoulders until the leather gave against his body, just so.

A few minutes into the film, Sherlock’s voice cut through the calm of the flat, even but insistent, only barely accusatory. “What on _earth_ are you watching?”

John sniffed in response, took a gulp from his ale and waited for a break in dialogue to inform him, “Tom Hanks.”

There was another brief length of silence before Sherlock inquired further. “The film is Tom Hanks?”

John wasn’t annoyed as much as he was slightly taken aback at how anxious Sherlock’s interruptions were rendering him. He found he didn’t want to miss a moment of the plot playing out on the screen. He’d seen the film before, with some girlfriend or other, but the story itself was strangely compelling and he found he was rather _enjoying_ it. 

Watching Meg Ryan’s character fall slowly in love with email user NY152, who happened to be one and the same as her foil, Joe Fox, was - John would begrudgingly admit - entertaining. And heartwrenching.  
“The actor is Tom Hanks, the film is _You’ve Got Mail_ ,” he explained.

On screen, Kathleen Kelly was meeting Joe Fox for the first time, and John laughed silently at the fairly well-crafted banter. It really wasn’t half bad for a romantic comedy; it had a solid storyline and fantastic acting and John found himself quite enamored with the backdrop of New York City. 

It wasn’t mindless but it was nice, and it had a happy ending. John could appreciate that.

Sherlock said nothing for a spell, content to swap out slides for other slides and then, as though finally finding the words, said quickly, “It sounds rather-”

“Oh stuff it,” John growled immediately and pressed himself back further into the cushions.

“-Romantic.” The word fell from Sherlock’s lips derisively, clanged around the shell of John’s ear and settled, heavy, for John to ponder on. It _was_ romantic, blatantly so, and still John enjoyed it, got wrapped up in the narrative, cared about what happened to the main characters, felt his heart tugged this way and that as was generally the purpose of these sorts of movies.

When Joe Fox arrived at Kathleen’s apartment with daisies, he was surprised to find that his stomach dipped and surged as though a tiny contingent of butterflies had become upset. John became sentimental about the outcome of the story and he supposed that alright, yes, it was all a bit romantic.

More than a bit.

John _liked_ this sort of film, this sort of story, this sort of _feeling_.

John turned his head towards the kitchen, but could only make out the back of Sherlock’s head and the set of his shoulders from where he was situated. “Well, yeah, I s’pose it is.”

“Romantic?” Sherlock remarked carefully.

John frowned, huffed a little sigh, “Yes.”

“You’re watching a… romance movie. You’ve no companion with you forcing you to do so; might I infer that you enjoy romance films?” Sherlock’s tone had taken on something very, very close to mocking. There was a thread of aloofness there, but John could tell he was trying to keep the smile out of his voice.

“I enjoy Tom Hanks,” John countered carefully. “Everyone loves Tom Hanks.”

Sherlock barked a little laugh and levered back on his stool to grin at John. “Chick flicks!” Sherlock exclaimed.

“And so what?” John asked defiantly as he sat up straighter and countered Sherlock’s glinting gaze with a hard one of his own. “I like romantic films. They’re… nice. They’re good, sometimes.”

“They’re nice.” Sherlock stated blankly, as though asking John silently, _Listen to what you’re saying. Are you really saying this?_ John noted that Sherlock had repeated himself not just once, but twice, and took a particular sort of glee at that; he really didn’t understand and was using the guise of embarrassing John in order to suss it all out.

As John took up his beer and gulped the rest down, he also paused the film on an image of Tom Hanks, gazing with sorrow, at the retreating back of Meg Ryan. His pint glass hit the coffee table with a loud thunk and he turned so that he was facing Sherlock full on. Sherlock had taken the opportunity to scoot the stool back a bit and they could see one another fully. 

“It’s sentiment, so I suppose I get why you wouldn’t understand, but… they’re enjoyable. These characters have problems and issues that keep them from one another and it’s a struggle and there’s … generally there’s a happy ending. Overcoming adversity, fighting to be with one another, they’re tragic sometimes, and… real, and you know it’s… it’s… quite lovely when the two main characters get together. It’s… affirming and, just, just-”

“Nice?” Sherlock interjected.

“It’s just nice, all right? Yes. When,” John’s hand flailed towards the television, drawing Sherlock’s gaze for a moment. “Tom Hanks shows up in the park at the end and Meg Ryan is overcome at seeing him, so happy that it’s _him_ , it’s, you know, textbook happy ending.”

“Hm.”

“Some people like that. You don’t have to believe it’s going to happen and you don’t have to believe it’s real but it’s nice, just for a moment, to suspend belief and hope that there’s something that exists like that for y-,” John stopped short, swallowed. “For everyone.”

A hush fell between them, while Sherlock looked from John to the television and back, upper teeth worrying his lower lip. “So,” his voice was low, “you’re a romantic, then.”

John huffed a little laugh, “Don’t know if just watching this film and enjoying it would qualify me as a-”

“But you believe in that sort of ideal, in the happy ending, and the happily-ever-after nonsense?” And John hadn’t expected that - not the words, he’d fully expected Sherlock to question him - but the softness of his voice, the genuine curiosity. 

“When you put it like that…”

“John.”

“Everyone wants to be _happy_ Sherlock, that’s all it is. It’s not so barmy to believe that you can have that moment.” John said, chin high and defiant. “And that’s all it is.”

“Ah,” and with a judicious little nod, Sherlock scraped his stool back across the floor, putting himself back flush with the worktop.

“And,” John continued, affecting a teasing tone, as he unpaused the film. “There is that nice bit where the bloke sweeps her off of her feet for the first kiss. Very effective when you’re on a date, have to say.” He got up and went to the refrigerator for another beer, noting on the way how Sherlock had paused, bent over the microscope, and was staring blankly down the hallway towards his bedroom.

Sherlock swallowed, cleared his throat. “Oh?”

Bottle to his lips, John leaned back against the appliance and felt the alcohol swirling pleasantly in his veins, the pleasure of knowing something that Sherlock was unaware of. His lips curled into a smile and he could sense Sherlock’s gaze shifting to linger on him. “If there was ever a scripted time to go in for the kiss, that would be it. Almost makes it a bit easier than, oh, saying goodnight at the front door, or after dinner. It’s a prime moment.”

Sherlock’s eyes went a little wide at the information, “Oh.”

“Why do you think so many blokes - aside from _myself_ of course- take their dates to see romantic comedies?” John laughed and peeled himself away, went back into the living room to finish _You’ve Got Mail_. 

He was rather sleepy and tipsy by the time Kathleen Kelly showed up at Riverside Park for her meeting with NY152. John smiled, knowing what was coming, watching as the golden retriever bounded around the corner and Joe Fox proved himself to be NY152. It was a beautiful little moment, and John’s smile slid off of his face as he felt his throat seize up a bit.

Bollocks and hell, he should have expected it, really. 

“I wanted it to be you so badly,” and that was lovely, wasn’t it? John swallowed against the lump and reached out blindly for his glass in order to finish the rest of his beer. His hand, however, encountered Sherlock’s knee and when John looked up in alarm Sherlock was already leaning down and pressing their mouths together.

John fell back against the sofa, startled, thrilled, confused but willing, and allowed Sherlock - who was balancing precariously over him - to lick gently but eagerly into his mouth.

Breath held, John kissed cautiously back, tongue finding it’s home alongside Sherlock’s for a very long, languid moment. John was just faintly wondering what to do with his hands when Sherlock pulled back, cheeks just a shade flushed, and looked at him from under a tumble of fringe.

“Was that it, then?” he asked. “Was that the moment?”

John blinked, couldn’t think, couldn’t move. “Yes,” he uttered, breathless, and watched as Sherlock nodded and turned back to go into the kitchen. Before him, on the screen, the credits rolled. 

“Happily ever after,” he swore he heard Sherlock utter just before he disappeared through to his bedroom.

John sat for a long, still moment, flabberghasted and half-hard, staring after him. “And,” he coughed out, voice angled in the direction of that hallway. “And what in bloody hell was _that_?”

There was no sound but for Sherlock’s bedroom door slamming shut, the issue firmly cast aside for the time being. And neither of them brought it up the next morning, or afternoon, or for the next month. Sherlock seemed content to let the fact that he’d kissed John - and _well_ , very well - become nothing but a pleasant, albeit confusing, memory.

And later, when Sherlock had jumped, after he’d died, John spent countless hours kicking himself for not saying anything, for not pressing the issue, for not extrapolating where the evening could have gone if John had just worked up the courage to go and knock on his door.

John had let it go, let it fade away and slip to the back of his mind where the memory stayed, covered by dust, too painful to keep recalling. When he’d met Mary, John was sure to keep the recollection under lock and key, only thinking about it sparingly when he needed something to ground him to the present and remind himself that he’d moved on.

But when Sherlock had returned, had said “That’s the thing about disguises” and worn the _exact_ same face he had when asking “Is that the moment?” John wasn’t entirely sure it was coincidental. And when Sherlock had mentioned at his wedding “Of course, he does tend to romanticise things a bit, but then, you know... he’s a romantic,” John knew he was recalling that evening too.

And he knew from the shadows in Sherlock’s eyes, that he was treating this as a loss, as an end. That Sherlock was giving it all up, letting it all go, right there in front of John, in front of Mary, in front of several dozen wedding guests and John was the only one who _understood_. Every opportunity missed spiralled out before John in the brief beats between Sherlock’s words and he felt a keen sense of loss, one that rocked his heart with the force of it. 

John looked down as his lap, then, and swallowed the lump of _something_ that had risen in his throat and played out that kiss that felt eons in the past. He recalled it out bit by bit, remembered the drag of dry lips, how Sherlock’s voice had gone ragged, how John had wanted _more_ but didn’t know how to ask for it.

Beneath the table Mary squeezed his thigh, and he felt it - wished he didn’t feel the instant need to recoil from the touch - wished that it was someone else entirely.


End file.
